Culture: Mormon tells us that the poor are not only separated from the rich in the synagogues—which is doubtless accurate—but also that they are forbidden even to enter. This second factor is problematic.
With the greatest caution, I suggest that Mormon is inaccurate in asserting that proscription against the poor. He wrote this text about five hundred years after the fact, with an already well-documented bias against all apostates. It is most probable that in this case Mormon is overstating the case. Here are the factors to consider.
First, Antionum is geographically separated from other Nephite locations, which means that it must be virtually self-sustaining. Only a small number of elites would not be engaged in farming. Lacking a monetary system, these urban elites are absolutely dependent on the farmers for food, for which the elites exchange religious and political services. It was a two-tiered social system: farmers and elites. Mesoamerica had no middle class this early; traders and merchants (as an identifiable separate class) come much later.
Coercion is not likely to be the main reason why the lower-class farmers are willing to support the urban elites. The farmers were in the fields, outside the city and not under direct supervision. If they were badly treated, they could leave. Because Antionum is fairly new, some of the farmers may have arrived in the area with the elites.
Therefore, the relationship between the farmer-poor and the elite-rich had to confer mutual benefit on both or it would not have endured. Mandatory exclusion of the poor would inevitably have led to their alienation from the rich and, almost certainly, their refusal to continue providing food and support. Indeed, the eventual demise of Copán (a Maya city in modern Honduras near the Guatemalan border) in the eighth century A.D. apparently resulted from just such an abandonment by the farmers. (See commentary accompanying Alma 35:4–6.) For these reasons, I conclude that Mormon is incorrect in saying the farmers were “not permitted” into the synagogues, if such permission took the form of guards or of legal bans.
What, then, prevented their entry? Mormon has preserved the reason: “They were cast out of the synagogues because of the coarseness of their apparel” (v. 2). The Nephite prophets had disparaged costly apparel from the days of Jacob about five hundred years earlier (see commentary accompanying Jacob 2:12–13) before the resulting social segregation. Antionum is living evidence of the inequality that the prophets predicted would come from emphasizing costly apparel.
As already described, Zoramite worship required the worshipper to come forward, stand in an elevated location in the sight of everyone, and utter a prayer declaring the superiority of his beliefs. His visible “costly apparel” would reinforce his superiority. Now imagine the effect of a poor farmer who chose to also mount the Rameumptom and offer the prayer. Almost certainly, in contrast to the others who prayed, this farmer would have little political influence or social standing. His inadequate clothing would reinforce his social inferiority. Uttering the prayer proclaiming his cultural superiority would be a further incongruity. Thus, he would not only be exposed in public (traditionally a forum the poor avoid) but also recited a prayer that highlighted differences in a way that did not favor him. The humiliation of being in such a position was the only mechanism of exclusion that was necessary.